By Log Raft and Coal Car - Traversing the Pennsylvania Wilds

By Log Raft and Coal Car - Traversing the Pennsylvania Wilds. Pennsylvania Wilds. , For thousands of years, Native Americans traversed this region in dugout canoes and over a far-reaching network of footpaths. White settlers followed and expanded these paths. Lumbermen floated billions of board feet of logs and lumber on the Allegheny and Susquehanna Rivers and their tributaries. By the mid-1800s, a canal system along the West Branch of the Susquehanna moved people and goods up- and downriver., Often mired in mud and snow, settlers sought better ways to travel overland. Railroads penetrated the region by the late-1800s, transforming both land and local communities. Locomotives hauled away the region's natural riches of coal, logs, lumber, hemlock bark for tanning, charcoal, and crude off and returned great, though often short-lived prosperity to local communities., By the 1930s, automobiles began to eclipse rail travel, as paved roads covered over dirt. Today, residents and visitors alike cross this landscape with ease for work and leisure. Terrain that once hindered travel now invites visitors to hike bike, ski, horseback ride, snowmobile, and paddle into the Pennsylvania Wilds., Impressions on the Land , Beginning here in Punxsutawney, bike, ski, walk or run the 15.5-mile Mahoning Shadow Trail, where railroad cars hauled coal to the coke ovens, which are still Visible along the route. Northwest of Punxsutawney, Coolspring Power Museum illuminates the story of the internal combustion technology, which closed the door on the steam era., In other areas of the region, float the National Wild and Scenic Clarion River or the West Branch of the Susquehanna where log drives once swept through. Visit the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site near Altoona, where canal boats were hauled over the Allegheny Mountains on an inclined plane railroad. In Patton, take an underground tour of the Seldom Seen Coal Mine., [Photo captions, top to bottom, read] , . The early timber industry in Pennsylvania relied on the major rivers to float timber to the mills., . Railroads hastened the settlement of the Lumber Heritage Region and the extraction of the region's natural resources., . Canals served the northeastern part of the Lumber Heritage Region until the great flood of 1889., . An electric mine car in the Adrian Mine transported miners, coal and tools.